Chapter X

They decided to call it a rest day as Deckard Cain was safe and Akara told Geldar and Talina there was no pressing business at the moment. Talina was lying down somewhere so Geldar decided to leave the camp by himself. It seemed rather foolhardy but he wanted to return to Tristram to finish something there.

He arrived at the Cairn Stones by midmorning and the protal was still there. He closed his eyes and stepped through. The stench of death was still around as well as the reek of decay. Nevertheless he walked around with his sword drawn, Talina had said the town was cleansed but there were still things in his mind that had to be done.

He had once cleansed an accursed town a while ago, one of the old women had been practicing forbidden magic and the entire village had suffered a plague as a result. Some said that the two events were unrelated, though not in the eyes of the Zakarum. They had evacuated the inhabitants and locked the old woman in her house, then torched the village. To this day Geldar never forgot the old woman's screams of agony as the house burnt around her.

Yet there wasn't much to be done except set fire to the corpses of the demons as most of the houses were empty shells anyway. He managed to enter the smouldering cathedral and put the desecrated shrine to rights, the Light of Akarat reigned again in Tristram.

As he was leaving he entered a house purely on impulse. There was nothing there, a smouldering bed and a table and chair askew. But he pulled back the burning coverlet and tossed the mouldy pillow aside.

A scabbard, slightly rusty and tarnished but by it was well-wrought with precious stones on the end and the tip glinted gold. He took it out of the house to examine it closer, there was writing on it that was too rusted to identify and a few clasps where it had slid onto a leather belt.

"A scabbard with no sword," Geldar said as he approached the portal. "Very strange."

Once he was through the other side there came another great crack that made him turn back. The portal was collapsing in on itself; there was a shudder and a murmur then nothing but the soft rain pattering on his shoulders. He looked up at the sky, it was getting dark.

"Didn't know it was so late in the day," he said as he approached the waypoint.

Upon entering the camp he showed Deckard Cain his find. The Horadric sage turned the scabbard over and over in his hands before taking a stone and started to rub the scabbard with it.

"What's that?" Geldar asked as Warriv neared the fire.

"Pumice stone," Cain replied. "Ah, it's just as I thought." He pointed to the writing on the scabbard, now clearer but still a bit tarnished. "This is the scabbard for Griswold's Edge, a broad sword fashioned on the Anvil of Fury. Keep it well once it is repaired." Cain handed the scabbard back to him.

Geldar fingered it for a few moments and a questioned occurred to him. He voiced it and Cain looked thoughtful.

"You may as well ask that, my friend," he said. "The scabbard is useless without its mate, but I daresay the Wanderer has it. It was fashioned for him. Look inside."

Geldar held it as close to the fire as he dared, looking closely he could see blood stains. But a much darker red than was normal.

"Demonic?" Geldar asked he dropped it as if it was cursed and wiped his hands on his tunic. "I shouldn't have touched it."

"Don't be foolish," the old man cautioned. "A sword that has slain a demon, particularly a Prime Evil, sings of its destruction as it enters the flesh. Imbued on it forever is power, raw power that may be used either way."

Geldar picked it up again and turned it over. Perhaps he could use it, or keep it for luck and protection. At the very least he could have it cleaned up as it troubled him to have a weapon, even part of one, in such a state.

"Get Charsi to fix it," Cain suggested. "Perhaps we'll find the sword later."

Geldar didn't say anything as he examined it.

"Where have you been?" Talina asked.

Geldar was sitting on a stone near the fire of Charsi's forge as she repaired the scabbard. He smiled as he watched her make the steel sing under her hammer. That is until Talina came around the corner in a bad state.

"Tristram," Geldar replied, not ceasing his watching of the smithing.

"What?" Talina demanded. "Why?"

"I may have just saved us," he said and gestured to the scabbard. "That's the casing of the sword that slew Diablo."

"You have the sword that killed the Lord of Terror?" Talina asked.

"No," Geldar answered. "Only the scabbard."

"Only the—" Talina said and she looked at the scabbard for a moment. "What's the use of it without a sword?"

"Never mind," Geldar said. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

"The Countess," Talina said. "She exists, not a story after all. Akara told me."

On their way to the Dark Forest the next morning, Talina related the narrative. The Countess, or rather Countess Cybelle of Tyenna, set up a hedonistic cult in her court. She appealed to the young who were critical of the Church of Light. When the Lord of Terror began to awaken below Tristram the cult took a sacrificial turn, Cybelle requested the bleeding of virgins male and female and she said that the blood would give her immortality. Eventually she was slain by one of her clergy who divided the Countess's vast fortune between them.

"But if you take that as fact," Talina said to him. "Then what that book told us is true then about the rest of it."

"About how much of it remains to be found?" Geldar asked. "I have no interest in such mundane things."

"What about that scabbard?" Talina asked. "That's a possession if you Zakarumites are against such things."

"Possession is allowed, within limits," Geldar replied. "Wealth, riches, lavishness corrupt the soul."

"Please don't go into that," Talina said tiredly. "I got enough criticism from your kind when I was a mercenary."

This made Geldar stop and stare at the young Amazon. He tried to look for any sign of jesting in her face but there was none, she looked deadly serious.

"Yes, I was a mercenary for a few years," Talina said. "I needed combat experience and the moment came in the failed capture of the stronghold of Diroshan near Mount Arreat."

"You were in that unholy conquest?" Geldar asked incredulously. "You were part of the unspeakable slaughter of civilians?"

"No, I was General Lodwin's bodyguard," Talina asked. "He suspected that some of his men would murder him, I saved his life several times and was rewarded for my services."

She showed him a piece of silver on a chain inscribed with what Geldar identified as a Shael Rune. She smiled at him as she put it back beneath her tunic.

"Most exploits normally have their rewards," she explained with a smile. "Even if the means to get them is quite unsanitary."

"Unsanitary is not the word I would use," Geldar said and he was silent after that.